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Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver demonstrates the process of using injection foam insulation in the exterior walls of a home with vinyl siding. Injection foam can be applied to walls even if they are already insulated with fiberglass batts. Besides increasing R-value, injection foam also closes gaps in the structure and seals air leaks.
This house has vinyl sidings so vinyl siding is relatively easy for us to get off so we can access the wall sheathing to drill 2-1/2 inch holes into it so that we can get the foam in there. If you have shingles then we simply cut a shingle wherever we want to drill a whole and pull that single off, drill our hole and afterwards we will plug the hole and put that shingle back where it was.
If we look at this fiberglass insulation you can see it is pink. This was the original color, but look at this. This is. It turns gray and black and that means that it is filtering air so there is a lot of air flowing through this wall and as the air flows through this fiberglass just access an air filter. It doesn't block airflow at all; it lets the air through the wall into the house and just captures the dust.
Injection foam expands before it goes into the wall. Once it is in the wall there are no more expanses and it takes place. It goes into the wall in a consistency like shaving cream or Cool Whip if you want to think of it that way and we inject it using just the pressure of the foam coming out of the hose to push it up into all the recesses of a wall cavity and around existing insulation filling pipe and wire holes and all little pinholes in the wall cavity stopping airflow.
The injection foam is made up of two parts. There is a resin and a foaming agent both sides have water in them so it is not a very harsh chemical like you have with spray foam. When we spray with spray foam we have to wear fitted respirators with dedicated air supplies. There is a lot of terrible chemicals that come off a spray foam. To let you know you are living in this house while we are injecting the walls with injection foam and there is no harsh chemical smell at all and in fact we don't have to wear respirators at all.
Read Full Transcript:
Larry Janesky: Hi. I am Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver. You know old houses don't have enough insulation in their walls. Some houses they are very old have no insulation in the walls and other houses have fiberglass batts in the walls but fiberglass does a very poor job of air sealing and filling the cavity completely to get a really good our value in the walls so we are going to be fixing this situation in this particular house which is a raised ranch that has addition onto it and we are going to do that by injecting urethane foam into the wall cavities so you now you might say, "Well, gee how do you do that in an existing house?" Let me show you.
This house has vinyl sidings so vinyl siding is relatively easy for us to get off so we can access the wall sheathing to drill 2-1/2 inch holes into it so that we can get the foam in there. If you have shingles then we simply cut a shingle wherever we want to drill a whole and pull that single off, drill our hole and afterwards we will plug the hole and put that shingle back where it was. As you can see we took the vinyl siding off here and we are able to drill holes to access the stud cavity and this house just has 3/7 inch sheathing and you can see these little nail holes here this house must have been sided with a different kind of siding. It was probably cedar shakes and the siding was removed to put the vinyl on that left all this little nail holes and that leaves a lot of air leaks in the house and vinyl siding is not air tight so the air comes right through the vinyl. To show you what I mean that walls leak air in existing homes if we look at this fiberglass insulation you can see it is pink. This was the original color, but look at this. This is. It turns gray and black and that means that it is filtering air so there is a lot of air flowing through this wall and as the air flows through this fiberglass just access an air filter. It doesn't block airflow at all; it lets the air through the wall into the house and just captures the dust.
So with fiber glass you have got basically one big pink air filter in every wall cavity and it doesn't stop air flow at all that is a big advantage of this urethane injection foam that we are going to be putting in today. It does stop all the air leaks. Injection foam is very specialized foam made just for injecting into existing walls and existing homes. If you use two parts spray foam in a wall cavity the expansion created by the chemical reaction of part A and part B as it is injected into the walls creates pressure on a dry wall and will push that dry wall right off the walls. Injection doesn't do that. Injection foam expands before it goes into the wall. Once it is in the wall there are no more expanses and it takes place. It goes into the wall in a consistency like shaving cream or Cool Whip if you want to think of it that way and we inject it using just the pressure of the foam coming out of the hose to push it up into all the recesses of a wall cavity and around existing insulation filling pipe and wire holes and all little pinholes in the wall cavity stopping airflow.
The injection foam is made up of two parts. There is a resin and a foaming agent both sides have water in them so it is not a very harsh chemical like you have with spray foam. When we spray with spray foam we have to wear fitted respirators with dedicated air supplies. There is a lot of terrible chemicals that come off a spray foam. To let you know you are living in this house while we are injecting the walls with injection foam and there is no harsh chemical smell at all and in fact we don't have to wear respirators at all so here we are this garage is a heated garage and we are injecting the walls in the outside of the garage. How do we know it got all the way in the walls? Well, we mark the hose and we stick the house all the way up to the top of the wall and all the way to the bottom of the wall from our hole but over here around this cable TV jack we could see the foam coming out and that is okay we can wipe this right off. It is not a sticky gooey mess like spray foam or other foams would be once the wall cavities are filled and the holes are plugged the siding is put back on and you never know we were here. Dr. Energy Saver; Contact us for a home energy evaluation and written estimate.
Watch the full Injecting Foam Insulation video and read more about how injection foam can help make your home more comfortable and lower your energy bills
